New Attorneys Fee Decision Against RIAA 144
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has gotten slammed again, this time in Oregon, as the Magistrate Judge in Atlantic v. Andersen has ruled that Tanya Andersen's motion for attorneys fees should be granted. The Magistrate, in his 15-page decision, noted that, despite extensive pretrial discovery proceedings, 'when plaintiffs dismissed their claims in June 2007, they apparently had no more material evidence to support their claims than they did when they first contacted defendant in February 2005.....' and concluded that 'Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case.' This is the same case in which (a) the RIAA insisted on interrogating Ms. Andersen's 10-year-old girl at a face-to-face deposition, (b) the defendant filed RICO counterclaims against the record companies, and (c) the defendant recently converted her RICO case into a class action"
Precedent! (Score:3, Interesting)
There are a lot of precedents being set against the RIAA lately, and it leads me to believe that maybe... just maybe... there's light at the end of this tunnel.
Re:Precedent! (Score:5, Funny)
There are a lot of precedents being set against the RIAA lately, and it leads me to believe that maybe... just maybe... there's light at the end of this tunnel.
Tunnel indeed. Hopefully this legal diariaa will have this shit cleared out of the tubes quickly and regularity can be restored.
Re:Precedent! (Score:4, Insightful)
Hold It! (Score:2, Funny)
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Re:Precedent! (Score:5, Informative)
If the decision is appealed and upheld, then a precendent has been set for the circuit in which it was appealed. All lower courts within that one circuit would be required to apply the appeals court's decision in all subsequent similar cases.
See this article [wikipedia.org] for details.
Re:Precedent! (Score:5, Informative)
2. But it is very very rare that any case is ever determined on the basis of an absolutely binding higher court authority. Almost invariably, where there is such authority available, the attorneys have figured that out long ago and there is no litigation to "decide".
3. Most briefs that are submitted cite plenty of non-binding judicial authorities, and even where they are citing binding higher authority, it is usually based on vastly different sets of facts.
4. There are numerous issues in the RIAA cases that will be decided on the basis of the fact that the RIAA has both brought, and pressed, numerous frivolous cases, with no evidence that the defendant committed a copyright infringement, just as was done in the Andersen case. And in those cases it continues to try to extort a "settlement" from the defendant even though it knows it has no case against the defendant. And in those cases where the defendant hangs tough, and is willing to see the case through to its conclusion and a jury trial.... the RIAA drops the case, as it did here. See, e.g., Capitol v. Foster [blogspot.com], Elektra v. Santangelo [blogspot.com], and Elektra v. Wilke [blogspot.com]. This recurring phenomenon will be relevant to future attorneys fees decisions, to possible sanctions motions against the record companies and their attorneys, to the record companies' claims of a "Noerr Pennington" defense which is not applicable to "sham" litigations, to claims of copyright misuse, and numerous other issues, in all district courts across the country, and will be cited by appellate courts when these cases finally do get to the appellate courts -- an event the RIAA is trying to avoid.
So yes. This judge's recognition of the RIAA's tactics is a very important precedent.
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You have explained the situation rather neatly, and in itself the system seems fairly straight forward (in so far as any legal procedure can be), but I note that you have not indicated an opinion of the system (not that you needed to). Id be interested to know if you thought that the system you described regarding precedents, where they are established and where they are valid is satisfactory, or, if you would prefer either that each case be judged purely
Re:Precedent! (Score:5, Insightful)
-leave too much to chance
-heighten unpredictability, and
-wreak havoc on our ability to plan our lives. I.e., it would be a step towards lawlessness.
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The purpose of a jury isn't to decide the whole case, it's to decide the disputed facts.
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With all of that being true (IANAL, unlike yourself, so I won't counter-argue), that is why I consider them to not count for much. The non-binding decisions are a gamble for citation, whereas a binding precedent is something that can be relied upon. I would consider this court decision to be a fal
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Re:Precedent! (Score:5, Informative)
2. Defendant's opposition papers in Lava v. Amurao [blogspot.com] and our opposition memorandum in UMG v. Lindor [blogspot.com] give you some others.
3. I can't here discuss with you all of the many reasons the RIAA's attempts to hide behind Noerr Pennington will fail, since the RIAA lawyers seem to read everything I write on the internet, but if you follow the legal documents filed on my blog you'll no doubt see more on the subject.
4. By the way, I doubt that they thought about Noerr Pennington when they started doing the illegal things they do; I think N-P is just an afterthought their lawyers came up with in hopes of preventing the Courts from finding out about their illegal conduct. But it will all come out. In the Napster case they lost their attorney client privilege by reason of the fact that their attorneys had lied to the US Department of Justice team investigating their digital music price fixing scheme. See "Court Finds Reasonable Cause to Believe that UMG and Capitol Deceived United States Dept of Justice" [blogspot.com], Recording Industry vs. The People, April 21, 2006.
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Two words: disinformation campaign.
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Magistrate Judges cannot actually do anything: their entire power comes from their parent district court's approval.
Re:Precedent! (Score:5, Informative)
2. They do not serve at anybody's "whim".
3. Magistrate decisions are ctied all the time.
4. There are many instances in which they have binding authority in the matter before them.
5. As the underlying article [blogspot.com] makes perfectly clear, this was not a binding authority, but awaits approval by the District Judge.
6. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but in 34 years of working in the litigation field I cannot recall ever having seen a District Judge reject the Magistrate Judge's findings. Usually Magistrate's "recommendations" -- like this 15-page decision -- are extremely thorough.
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Of course, magistrate rules are binding within their own courts, but you cannot apply a magistrate ruling to a normal district court; all you can do is refer to the district court having adopted the R&R. That's why a magistrate, on their own, is nothing: their power is fully dependent upon their district court agreeing.
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This is the main problem with anglo-saxon "justice" systems. It's a fairly primitive law-system (similar to those used to stone-age cultures) since it is dictated by custom. It essentially means that whatever misguided decisions must be perpetuated ad vitam æternam, and whenever a new decision has been made (such like when new, never before
Re:Precedent! (Score:4, Insightful)
Louisiana has been using the Napoleonic system since it joined the US. I can tell you from having lived and worked in that state that their legal system is no better or worse than any other state- it is in fact the implementation and administrators that govern the effectiveness of the system. And in Louisiana they certainly have no special competence.
Yes, common law is more chaotic. It is also a far older system which has a much longer track record of success.
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Ah, a racist. I can see there is no need to continue here.
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In the US, most situations are also formally codified -- in those cases, the judge just applies the statute to the case at hand. The only question is what you do when you hit a new situation which isn't formally codified. I have a tough time believing that any
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Pfft. I don't know why you think, for example, that France is more civilized than the UK or Louisiana than Mississippi. I suppose you're entitled to your opinion, but you're not doing yourself any favors by being derogatory toward "Anglo-Saxons." In the US, most situations are also formally codified -- in those cases, the judge just applies the statute to the case at hand. The only question is what you do when you hit a new situation which isn't formally codified. I have a tough time believing that any country has a civil code in which the solution for all possible disputes is set out in black and white. There have to be in-between areas where the rules do not precisely spell out the answer. And, then the question is: what happens to the second person who hits that gray area? Is he allowed to say "Look. I did exactly the same thing John did, and you said he didn't do anything wrong, so you shouldn't find that I did anything wrong either"?
In France people are being prosecuted criminally for offending the record companies by engaging in peer to peer file sharing.
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This is the main problem with anglo-saxon "justice" systems. It's a fairly primitive law-system (similar to those used to stone-age cultures) since it is dictated by custom. It essentially means that whatever misguided decisions must be perpetuated ad vitam æternam, and whenever a new decision has been made (such like when new, never before seen, technology, such as the Internet, is involved), the prevailing party is the one with the deepest pockets, who is able to afford the best legal team to shoehorn the case into various precedent cases, no matter how unrelated or convoluted, and make it stick to the court. Fortunately, other, more civilized countries use a civil code system where most situations are formally codified, which essentially prevents rich people from making their own custom-made laws and shove them down the throats of, We, the People, against our will.
I am not in a position to discuss the merits of the common law system versus those of a code system, since I have never practiced law under a code system. But I can tell you that
-your description of our common law system is way off base in many, many respects, and
-in some code countries, like France, people are being prosecuted criminally for p2p file sharing, in order to enrich the coffers of the big record companies. 3 of the 4 big record companies are based in code countries, where they apparently h
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2. Correction. File sharing is not criminalized in the U.S.
3. Congratulations. I'm happy for you that file sharing "has been determined to be legal" in your country.
4. Question. Was the "determination" in a "code" or was it a judge's decision interpreting the code?
5. Question. Do you want the judge's decision to be "perpetuated", or would you rather leave it up to other judges to ignore it because it was "misguided"?
6. I am guessing that
-it was a decision b
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It was not a "code" that was interpreted, but the privacy act. From what I gather, the discovery process cannot override privacy laws. But don't take my word for
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One step closer... (Score:1)
Re:One step closer... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Although I shouldn't respond to you - I will. This is nothing about Americans not paying their way. This is about cases being brought to court with inadequate evidence, or simply no significant evidence at all, in a hope that the case will either be settled by the defendants simply to avoid the expense of the case - but not as an admission of their guilt - or as a way of frightening others. If they had adequate evidence then the case should be in court, but they haven't.
Well you're only saying that because you actually RTFA, as opposed to the ignoramus -- probably in the employ of the RIAA -- to whom you were responding.
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I'm sure I could do a better job than I've seen the shills do of late, they don't seem to be trying anymore.
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But if you really want the job I think you should send your application to their attorneys, who seem to be the ones running the show.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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It was only in England (not too coincidently) the home of the industrial revolution 400 years ago this incentive brought about by mass production of copies first came to exist, and it is not too surprising that this is where and when copyright law f
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Playing on the idea of the noble savage not needing copyright law is disingenuous
Pretending that current copyright law is the only alternative, and bring in irrelevant nonsense like "noble savage", is a lot more disingenuous.
and completely neglects the main issue -
The main issue being to encourage the most efficient and cost effective creation, dissemination and use of ideas. Nothing more. Copyright, as it is currently implemented, appears to be increasingly useless in the efficient creation, diss
This isn't ancient Greece or Rome... (Score:3, Interesting)
I respect your point that culture and content was abundant in times when there were no copyright laws, but its relative abundance paled in comparison to today. Consider that:
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People of each social class were expected to help and support those in the class below them, and did so.
Bullshit. People were expected to work as slaves to those in the social class above them, and were occasionally given a few scraps from the table.
Very over-simplified and historically ignorant... (Score:4, Interesting)
That is a very simplistic way of looking at things. It assumes, among other things, that all cultures have the same nature, and that therefore copyright isn't necessary. And that is very historically ignorant. The nature of cultures in the past was not the same as it is now.
"Think about all the great poets and philosophers of Greece and Rome. They didn't get a dime when copies were made of their work by amanuenses and sold in the marketplace, but they didn't complain."
Actually, that's not true. We honestly don't know if they were paid royalties or not. We do not seem to have any defenses from the Athenian law courts regarding copying, but that just means that none survived to us - there may or may not have been any. The current documents that have survived suggest that the Athenians were not suing people over copying, but we honestly don't have enough recovered to know for certain.
Aside from which, neither ancient Greece or Rome had a concept of individual rights. People would be sued based on a failure to carry out their responsibilities, but the rights of the individual was a concept that was centuries in the future. There was a concept of obligation, and that went right through to Christian times (for example, in terms of religion, the Romans didn't like the Christians because they didn't fulfill their obligation of joining the rest of their community at sacrifices, meaning that they were not "doing the sacred things" (aka "sacra facere") - and meaning that bizarrely to our conception of religion, the Christians were persecuted for being atheists).
"Indeed, the only time someone had issue with copying, the Roman poet Martial in his Epigrams , it was because another fellow was putting his name on those copies. And even then, Martial didn't demand legal penalties; he just lampooned the guy."
In fact, there was a law I recently learned about passed by the Emperor Augustus that declared that the content being copied belonged to the copyist. That being said, in Ancient Greece and Rome ridicule was a corrective, and it could be very dangerous to somebody. There is at least one case on record of somebody committing suicide because of slanderous poems being written about them (I know because I've spent the last two years working on a book about ancient Greek and Roman humour with a professor of Classics).
I can't speak for the law outside of Europe, but my own inquiries into the history of copyright have suggested that in order for a concept of copyright to develop, there needs to be certain factors in play:
1. A concept of the rights of the individual.
2. The technology to mass produce copies of the work (without this, copying is not an issue).
3. A society capable of mass consumption of the work (for literature, a literate society, etc. - and again, copying is pointless if there is no market to consume it).
4. A free market economy (extremely important, as it means that there is a financial stake for whoever is copying, and whoever creates).
Without all of these, there can be no development of the concept of copyright. As soon as all four appear, however, copyright follows. The Stationer's Log (the earliest form of copyright in England) was at the dawn of this, but copyright as we know it didn't come until 1705 - and at that point, the patronage system was beginning to disappear, society was literate and the printing press had been around for a while, there was effectively a free market economy, and the rights of the individual had become prevalent enough that two revolutions would occur within the century over them. A lot of people may not like to hear this, but copyright did develop naturally as the circumstances developed so that it became necessary.
"In Hong Kong, the film and music industries c
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Nice post — or at least, it seems like an informative post to me. I'll admit I don't know enough about the time period to comment at all. However, this:
... is not the least bit correct, and someone with your apparent mental faculties should be able to see why. For any product for which demand exists and for which there is limited supply, there is a set of prices that
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Given you have 1000 items to sell that cost you $1.00 to make.
Given you would sell all at $1.50 or less. ($1500 gross - $1000 cost = $500 profit)
Given you would sell none at $8.00.
You find you can sell 200 of them at $7.00 ($1400 gross - $200 cost = $1200 profit)
For simplicity, let's say higher prices give lower profits as sales approach zero.
For simplicity, let's say lower prices give lower profits.
Given these facts, businesses will charge $7.00. They do
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For any product for which demand exists and for which there is limited supply, there is a set of prices that are low enough (law of demand) that all items will sell. Of these, pick the highest: this represents the most money that you can make, while still selling all the items in your inventory.
Please read my post in that context. I think it might make a bit more sense to you.
You don't have to sell everything to make the most profit. You often make a higher profit setting
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Probably too tired to have been posting.
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And honestly I'd rather watch a cat falling off a chair then some of the stuff Hollywood defecates out and/or ruins.
Re:One step closer... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:One step closer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they can. Seriously.
See, the value of it is very very low. The asking price is considerably more than that. Therefore, most people wouldn't seriously consider buying it at the asking price, and will simply go without, or wait until it comes onto TV and then record it, or buy it second hand, or whatever.
Digital content provides another option, and one which is quite convenient for many people at that. It's so convenient that many people pay for fast internet connections specifically so they can download things; and many of these people also wear part of the cost of allowing other people to access the content too! Which just goes to show, the content does have some value, it's just much less than the content producers want to charge for it. Also, since the content producers aren't making it available in a convenient and affordable manner, the money is going to those who do: ISP's.
Previously, Big Media have been able to charge whatever they wanted, because it was impractical for anybody else to distribute it. Now, it's cheap and easy to distribute high-quality copies of the content to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Eventually, the content producers will have to accept that they can only charge what the market is willing to pay, but for now they're just throwing a tantrum and calling everyone who doesn't value their content as highly as they do "thieves".
Re:One step closer... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm the sort of person who buys what he likes.. I prefer to give money to people who provide me with entertainment. My usual MO is to download what I want and if I like it I will look for it on CD or DVD and purchase it. I have a strange collection of movies and many of them were downloaded before I bought them. I make good money and I'm more than willing to share some of it with people who make my life more enjoyable.
When it comes to TV shows I find I can't even buy what I want. It's just not available. My choices are to either download it or sit during the time they put it on the TV and watch it and there is my problem. My evenings are MINE to decide what to do with. I'm not going to give up hanging out with friends just so I can sit and watch TV. I'm not going to give up making extra money to sit and watch TV. I'm not going to give up weekly church events to sit and watch TV.
So I download and hope whoever ripped what I want didn't do too bad a job of it. But you know what? My time is expensive. I would happily pay someone to make sure that whatever I got was good quality. But they simply don't provide that service.
How did things get so completely backwards? What happened to customer convenience? The whole point of capitalism is to provide a SERVICE. When the customer wants a service the customer pays for it and gets what (s)he pays for. Give me what I want(entertainment) and I'll give you what you want(money). Instead we have an organization that expects me to make changes for them and do business at their convenience. And then they have the nerve to feel entitled to this arrangement.
They need to get over themselves and start providing a service again. Until they do that: I'm stuck downloading.
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Good thing no one told the inventor of the "pet rock" that they had to provide a "SERVICE"...unless you want to claim that being provided with a "pet rock" is a service. But if that's the case, why couldn't media giants claim that "inconvenience" is the service they are providing?
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"Thank you SO much! That's a point I've been unable to formulate, a logical link I'd never seen stand by itself. Yes, the point of downloading things is not only price, but convenience. It is so EASY! I'd happily pay for most content, really. What if my ISP gave money to some artists I name on a list, what with my 100/month bill. In my case, I'd see it that way : My ISP charges 50 for a month, with a 50GByte limit. Beyond that, it's priced 1/GB. I'd be happy to know that some percentage of that goes to the
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If you want to follow a TV show in Japan though you live in Iceland, no problem.
In a world where kids grow up with every piece of information at their fingertips, the old business model won't work. Waiting a year for plastic disks to be released in your area (For foreign shows, they will never be released at all except blockbusters)? Just in order to buy a certain piece of information legally? When you find the same information online the day after it was released.
Re:One step closer... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not theft, because you're not depriving the producer of anything. In your gadget example, those gadgets a) cost money to produce and b) selling them is the only way for the company to recoup its costs.
My downloading a copy of a film or whatever doesn't prevent the producer from being able to sell it to other people. The other big difference is that the outcome, for the producer, is the same whether I choose the legal option (don't buy the content, and therefore never see it) or the illegal option (to download it): they get nothing from me, but I also don't cost them anything.
It's for this reason that it appears "neutral": I'm not directly harming them by downloading something I would've otherwise chosen to ignore.
This of course, depends on the idea that you only download things you truly wouldn't buy if you couldn't download them. This isn't always the case, and I guess this is where an individual's sense of ethics comes into it, and why distributing copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission is against the law. On the other hand, quite a few people do buy things they've already acquired by downloading them (myself included), and in many cases had they not being able to try it out "for free" they wouldn't have bought it. There's also the potential for increased word-of-mouth advertising: downloaders telling their friends, who go out and buy the DVD because they actually find it more convenient than downloading, or more people watching it on TV resulting in more advertising revenue. And, since downloading and sharing is an "underground" activity (due to it being illegal), it's nigh impossible to track with any kind of accuracy the nett effect of downloading. So, those in favour of it say it actually helps them sell more stuff, and those opposed say it decreases sales. Both sides are just making stuff up, because nobody actually knows.
Back to your gadget analogy, it would be more accurate to imagine that someone finds a way to duplicate the gadget for a tiny fraction of the RRP. So, he buys one from the store at full price (maybe splitting the costs between a few friends), then he uses his gadget duplicator technology to make limitless additional copies and sells them for a pittance to cover his costs. The manufacturer of the gadget, rather than embrace this new copying technology, continues to make their gadgets the old fashioned way and sell them at the same price. Conscientious consumers naturally choose the cheaper option.
Even worse, the manufacturer may in fact embrace the copying technology in order to lower their costs, but sells their now much cheaper to produce gadgets at the same price as before. Or, they sell them a bit cheaper but with built-in self-destruction devices so you end up needing to buy it several times over if you want to keep using it (that's my analogy for certain DRM schemes).
Now, the manufacturer does still need to defray the R&D costs so they can't sell it as cheaply as the guy who merely copied it, but they need to do it in a way that doesn't make the customer feel like they're being ripped off. That's the tricky bit, and the answer may very well turn out to be that spending millions (or hundreds of millions) of dollars making TV shows or movies just isn't a viable use of resources. For example, Prison Break is a reasonably entertaining programme, but is 42 minutes of reasonably entertaining TV really the best use of two million dollars [wikipedia.org] our society can come up with?
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I drove to the store last month looking for a specific, recent movie. Could not find it. Get it? I'm actively trying to pay for a DVD, trying to encourage the producer to make more like it -- and it's not in the flippin' store.
But there is a torrent for it.
Don't forget, this is a current movie; the fact I'm a weirdo who also would like the complete run of Misfits of Science does not enter into it. The simple fact is that the torrent providers are doing a better job of distributing ni
yeah, well, you can't have everything (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd think it would take them a lot less than two years to fabricate the proper evidence. Maybe their "research" team is running a backlog of cases and this one fell through the cracks.
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Re:yeah, well, you can't have everything (Score:5, Insightful)
They do think they're the "good guys", which is more of a motive than you might think [slashdot.org]. When you're the "good guy", your own misdeeds can be morally justified (at least in your own mind) because your overall mission is "good", not "evil".
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Re:yeah, well, you can't have everything (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:yeah, well, you can't have everything (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking of money, I had always thought the RIAA was funded by the various member corporations, and was to some degree subject to their will. With the RIAA extracting substantial sums from these settlements, are they functioning now as an independent profit-making enterprise? Are they operating this lawsuit mill at a loss? If not
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Speaking of money, I had always thought the RIAA was funded by the various member corporations, and was to some degree subject to their will. With the RIAA extracting substantial sums from these settlements, are they functioning now as an independent profit-making enterprise? Are they operating this lawsuit mill at a loss? If not ... where does the money go, anyway?
Being somewhat familiar with what is going on, and being fairly good in arithmetic, I'm pretty sure they're operating the litigation mill at a substantial loss. But I think their primary objective is to save their dying business model, which is a much bigger problem than the few million a year they're dropping on the litigation.
I.e., they are not measuring it in terms of whether the revenues from the litigation exceed the expenses of the litigation. The primary objective of the litigations isn't to produ
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Of course, terrorism (which apparently doesn't always require the application of high explosive, just a certified letter or two) has little to do with specific targets: quite the opposite. The more you can encourage everyone to believe that they a
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I have no feel for the costs involved. I had sort of tacitly assumed that they were profiting from the cases that settled immediately
Again, based on nothing more than my general knowledge and arithmetic, I think the RIAA
-makes a profit on the settlements,
-loses money on the default judgment cases (which make up the large majority of the cases), and
-loses a ton of money on any contested cases.
I think the percentage of cases ending in default judgments and in settlements has diminished, and the percentage being contested has increased, thus moving them from breaking even to losing money.
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So their efforts are no longer self-sustaining. That's what I was getting at. If they're operating in the black they can keep this up forever, but if this has turned into into an ineffective money sink their masters may eventually call a halt.
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-throw out the RIAA's boilerplate complaint
-uphold very grave counterclaims
-balk at the ex parte motion practice, and
-assess attorneys fees.
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What did we learn today? REVENGE! (Score:2)
Seriously, while this is small potatoes change to RIAA, it's a major blow in terms of precedence.
FINALLY, their tactics are coming back to bite them in the ass.
And it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of racketeering bastards.
Settling still seems less painful (Score:4, Interesting)
RTFPDF, smile and wait for class action (Score:2, Insightful)
The Magistrate gives the impression in his ruling that the attorney fees be granted [blogspot.com] that he thinks they should be stopped from such activity, starting with making them pay the defendant's lawyer fees and possibly extra penalties. Further, he states that the defendant is still eligible to participate in the class action suit and other claims against the RIAA e
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It doesn't make sense to assert that settling will be less painful (to whom?) when you organize your entire argument around an unanswered question. Yes, running away from a fight is less painful than getting punched, but this isn't necessarily the only criteria involved.
I just can't imagine any court procedings fixing our societal dilemma.
Beyond the assum
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I just can't imagine any court procedings fixing our societal dilemma.
Beyond the assumption that the **AA problem can only be solved as a "societal dilemma," I'm guessing you aren't a lawyer.
I'm guessing that not only is he not a lawyer, he's never read a history book, either. Because court proceedings have been crucial at every stage of American history, and have fixed many 'societal dilemmas' which neither the legislative bodies nor the executive branches in state and federal government were able to 'fix'. I have already labeled the author of the GP a "foe" and he continues to demonstrate that he richly deserves that appellation.
Lawyers Luv the DMCA (Score:2)
Laws are passed by legislatures, but only interpreted and applied by judges. A judge cannot make new laws, and he cannot fix bad ones, he can only deal with the law as it IS, not as it SHOULD BE.
I assert that we have too many overextensive and overreaching copyright protection laws, because companies have pressu
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Unless the recipient seeks independent legal advice from someone who's actually aware of these cases before settling, the short answer is "Not a lot".
Legal Advice from Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
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The risks of having to pay all costs (which include negative publicity), being sanctioned for bringing frivolous lawsuits, and having additional judgements narrowing the **AA's target area.
This is exactly why recording contracts are HUGE.. (Score:2, Interesting)
To me, it seems they never learn :) (Score:2)
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Got that right. It's the number 2 reason I haven't bought any music online. Value is number 1. Too much money for too little quality, content and usability. DRM/Copy protected CD tracks are incompatible with my car stereo, living room DVD player, portable DVD/MP3 player and Winamp, PowerPoint, Lights-O-Rama, DigitalPhotoFrame,.... I buy DVD's instead. CSS is broken enough DVD's can be put on both the kids Zen and iPod without buying the me
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Well, no question they seem to be good at that. So far as learning about anything else, that's really a matter for their member companies to figure out for themselves. I mean, let's put the blame where it belongs. The RIAA is just an enforcement arm at this point: if Sony et. al woke up one day and said, "That's it. This whole DRM/anti-fair-use/lawsuit/rootkit thing just isn't working and we're going to sell 320 kbit/sec archival-quality DRM-free MP3
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A long way towards discouraging the mess (Score:3, Insightful)
(Even better would be to force the RIAA to pay the defendant what they were attempting to collect in the first place - do that only once or twice and all of these cases go away.)
Re:A long way towards discouraging the mess (Score:5, Informative)
The customer is always wrong-or is a crook! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The customer is always wrong-or is a crook! MOD (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd mod the parent Insightful +1 for that point alone.
instant karma got 'em (Score:4, Funny)
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Reminds me of this scene:
Max Headroom: Security Systems [maxheadroom.com]
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's because it is funny. It's a 15th century misspelling of a french word, what do you expect it to look like?
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Freaky.